Empty View

Empty View

Empty View // 18:06min // Animation // 2017 // Iran

Director: Ali Zare Ghanatnowi

Mother keeps a lookout for her son to return home from war. She knits him a pair of gloves remembering how her son rubbed his cold hands together on the wintry morning he left. The war goes on. Mother waits.

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TransMilitary

TransMilitary

TransMilitary // 93min // Documentary // 2018 // US

Directors: Gabe Silverman and Fiona Dawson
Writers: Jamie Coughlin and Gabriel Silverman

TransMilitary chronicles the lives of four individuals (Senior Airman Logan Ireland, Corporal Laila Villanueva, Captain Jennifer Peace and First Lieutenant El Cook) defending their country’s freedom while fighting for their own.

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All the Winters I Haven’t Seen

All the Winters I Haven’t Seen

All The WInters I Haven’t Seen //  17min // Animation // 2015 // Iran

Directors: Omid Koshnazar Cast: Stella Ulm, Max Jelbart, Rowan Kennett

In New York City, a woman in the first trimester of pregnancy discovers through a long series of tests that there is a high likelihood her child will be born with severe physical defects. It turns out that she had been exposed to chemical weapons.

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Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound // 8min // 2016 // Australia

Director: Miles Gibson

Based on a true story, in October of 1917 a young soldier becomes trapped in the notoriously treacherous mud of the Battle of Passchendaele. As he attempts to escape his tragic fate, the young soldier relives moments from his short life in a vain attempt to reforge the choices that had bought him there.

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Miro

Miro

Miro // 23min // Drama // 2016 // Australia

Directors: Victoria Wharfe McIntye

When Miro returns home at the end of World War II he finds his land taken, his people gone, his daughter stolen and his service record treated with contempt

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Silence is the Accomplice

Silence is the Accomplice

Screening of Silence is the Accomplice // Documentary // 2017 // Australia

Director: Lieutenant General Angus John Campbell

The stories of four very brave serving Army members dealings with family and domestic violence.

The film tells the stories of four very brave serving Army members with family and domestic violence.

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That’s Mine

That’s Mine

That’s Mine // 6:15min // Animation // 2015 // Iran

Director: Maryam Kashkoolinia

Left in the bush in a war long ago, a landmine awaits its victim with fatal patience. We see village life, workers in the fields, children playing games … all from the perspective of the landmine.

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Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart // 17min // Sci fi // 2017 // Australia

Writer/Director: Timothy Wade

A World War Two English soldier wakes from a coma to find a mysterious old man sharing his hospital room.

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The Belief

The Belief

The Belief // 2min // Animation // 2016 // Iran

Director: Amir Vahedi

The enemy attacks the country and war begins. An invisible man puts on a pair of soldiers’ boots. The boots prepare to fight  the enemy, but when they see fragments of other boots in the battlefield, they refuse to go forward.

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After The War

After The War

After The War // 14min // Drama // 2017  // Russia

Director: Georgij Davidov

The story of two soldiers fighting on opposing sides. They are destined to come face to face and feel crime and remorse, despair and tears. They come to the realisation that the war is ruthless and senseless and decide to leave it together.

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War Ball

War Ball

War Ball // 1:40min // Animation // 2013 // Iran

Director: Saeed Madadi

A calm violin player, becomes a warrior, just because of a little ball hits him.

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The Passer

The Passer

The Passer // 11min // Drama // 2016 // Iran

Director: Pouria Pishvaei
Writer: Omid Shams

A squad of soldiers under enemy fire come to a dead end. With no way back, they need to make a tough decision to be released at the edge of death.

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The After War

The After War

The After War // 11:39min // Drama // 2016 // USA

Director: Giorgio Litt
Cast: Nikki Deloach, Jentzen Ramirez, James Devoti

The wife of a mentally-ill veteran and her son scrape by in an abandoned RV park, but they can’t escape her worst fear: the return of her husband.

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Her Unlikely Kin

Her Unlikely Kin

Her Unlikely Kin // 15min // Drama // 2015 // USA

Director: Kenneth Raimondi

Sarah Rassi is running out of options. She needs a bone marrow transplant and her only match on the registry is troubled war veteran, Peyton Sinclair. Can Peyton overcome his own battles with PTSD to step up and save Sarah’s life?

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Kookaburras

Kookaburras

Kookaburras // 16min // Documentary // 2017 // Australia

Director: David Jenkins

This short follows the commissioning and making of a fused glass window, by Canberra glass artist Ruth Oliphant, to memorialise women who have been widowed by war. Four generations of Australian women speak about their experiences.

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It Would Piss Me Off to Die So Young

It Would Piss Me Off to Die So Young

It Would Piss Me Off to Die So Young // 16:17min // Animation // 2016 //  Portugal

Writer/Director: Filipe Abranches

Several soldiers, hidden behind masks, march off to war. This impressively animated story takes us on a battlefield journey to inevitable catastrophe. It is the First World War and a Portuguese soldier, wearing a gas mask, hides from the abstract fog. As he inhales mustard gas, symbolic visions appear before him in a claustrophobic series of events.

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And We Were Young

And We Were Young

And We Were Young // 75min // Animation // 2015 // USA

Writer/Director: Andy Smetanka

A stop-motion, silhouette-animation oral history of American soldiers, ‘Doughboys,’ in the last months of the Great War. A brutal, hauntingly beautiful, and thoroughly original vision of America’s war, narrated entirely in the words of the ones who were there.

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La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon

La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon

La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon // 98min // Comedy // 2016  // France & Belgium

Writer/Director: Jonathan Barré
Writers: Grégoire Ludig, David Marsais

Max and Léon’s adventures, two childhood friends idle and party-goer, who are trying to escape the Second World War.

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Tango on the Balcony

Tango on the Balcony

Tango on the Balcony // 19min // Drama // 2016 // US & Cyprus

Writer/Director: Minos Papas

Johnny, an Iraq war veteran who wrestles with post traumatic stress and the transition to civilian life, is tormented by an incessant hyper vigilance and insomnia and the lingering questions of his past actions in combat.

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Gloriana

Gloriana

Gloriana // 9min // Drama // 2015 //  US

Director: Stefany Mathias

The US Army’s first female Ranger platoon leader is unfairly tried for a failed combat mission.

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She Will Be Loved

She Will Be Loved

She Will Be Loved // 30min // Drama // 2017 // USA

Writer/Director: Chadwick Pelletier

A female CIA Officer is on an overseas mission when her convoy is struck by an IED, and she is medevaced as the loan survivor.

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The Sandbox

The Sandbox

The Sandbox // 47min // Drama // 2016 // USA

Writer/Director: Jennifer Kramer

A young boy struggles to reconnect with his dad who returns from Iraq still haunted by his tour of duty.

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The Darkest Hour

The Darkest Hour

The Darkest Hour // 125min // Drama // 2017 // UK

Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Anthony McCarten

During the early days of World War II, the fate of Western Europe hangs on the newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Hitler or fight on against incredible odds.

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The Camouflage Closet

The Camouflage Closet

The Camouflage Closet // 40min // Documentary // 2013 // USA

Writer/Director: Michael Nedelman

In this veteran-led project, LGBTQ+ veterans were provided with the cameras, tools, and training to create video narratives. Told in nine vignettes, the film incorporates the LGBTQ+ veterans’ first-hand experiences with PTSD, trauma and recovery.

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Hyena Road

Hyena Road

Hyena Road // 120min // Drama // 2015 // Canada

Writer/Director: Paul Gross

There men, three different paths, caught in conflict but brought together to save lives

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Boat People

Boat People

Boat People // 29min // Drama // 2016 // Germany

Writer/Director: Paul Meschùh

On his journey from Somalia to Europe, shipwrecked Moussa is picked up by a wealthy couple on their luxurious catamaran.

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In the Neighbour’s Garden

In the Neighbour’s Garden

In the Neighbour’s Garden // 12min // Drama // 2015 // UK

Director: Robert Hamilton
Writer/Producer: Andrew Martyn-Lewis and Matthew McPherson

In the First World War, two soldiers live out their existence in either boredom or fear, until a chance discovery lifts them away from the trenches.

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The Little Boy

The Little Boy

The Little Boy // 8min // Animation // 2015 // Iran

Writer/Director: Mona A Shahi

People are leaving a town by the order of military but a little boy does not want to follow them he has his own mission to do.

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There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun // 13min // Drama // 2016 // Iran

Writer/Director Faezeh Alavi

A girl narrates her nightmares, and the boundaries of dream and reality start to fade and become indistinct.

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Monument

Monument

Monument // 3min // Animation // 2016 // Poland

Director: Marcin Gizycki

The Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw was designed by Bohdan Lachert and built in 1949-1950. The chief sculptor for this project, which represents socialist realism at its best, was Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz.

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Ozone

Ozone

Ozone // 21min // Drama  // 2015 // Serbia

Director: Branko Sujić
Writers: Slobodan Obradović, Branko Sujić

In a post-apocalyptic near future devastated by global nuclear war, Dastagir, one of the few survivors, fights to regain his lost love and rediscover his humanity.

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The Ripple Effect of PTSD

The Ripple Effect of PTSD

The Ripple Effect of PTSD // 12min // Documentary // 2016 // Australia

Director/Producer: Kym Melzer

Veteran Kirsty Greenshields and her husband veteran James Greenshields describe their rollercoaster personal journey from, Post Traumatic Stress to Post Traumatic Growth.

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Komm Und Spiel (Come and Play)

Komm Und Spiel (Come and Play)

Komm Und Spiel (Come and Play) // 30min // Drama // 2013 // Germany

Writer/Director: Daria Belova

Berlin. Grisha, a Russian-German boy, fools around with a wooden stick toy gun. The longer he plays, the further he is thrust into an altered reality.

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Modern War Song

Modern War Song

Modern War Song // 5min // Music Video // 2015 // Austria

Writer/Director: End Brandner

A sunset, helicopters, machinery … just like the Futurists. He believed in the beauty of all of it. Unaware how gruesome and raw the reality of it really was.

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Anrath

Anrath

Anrath // 20min // Drama // 2015 // Germany

Writer/Director/Producer: Gregor Hoeppner

Nazi Germany, October 1944. A 60-year-old Jewish woman, from the village of Anrath in the Lower Rhine Region, is being deported. She rides crossbar on the bike of an elderly village policeman.

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Red Line

Red Line

Red Line // 8min // Animation // 2012 // Iran

Writer/Director: Mona A Shahi

In a desert neverland a turtle and a lizard unwillingly get involved in a war between two powers. As a result, they both are put in a tough situation.

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Exit Wounds

Exit Wounds

Exit Wounds // 11min // Documentary // 2015 // Australia

Writer/Director: Pattie Collins

The story is about a former Australian soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition developed following deployment with a United Nations peacekeeping mission to Rwanda at the time of the civil war in the 1990s.

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Mi e Ti

Mi e Ti

Mi e Ti // 5min// Music Video // 2016 // Italy

Writer/Director: Samuel Gottardello

Mi E Ti is the story of an Italian soldier, set during the World War I. Dispersed after an assault that turns out to be a massacre, he takes refuge in a forest and gets lost.

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Not Their Boots

Not Their Boots

Not Their Boots // 6min // Drama // 2013 // Australia

Writer/Director: Jordon Prince-Wright

A student short film that was made during Year 12, based on the start of the Second World War, inspired the stories and thoughts of the director’s grandfather.

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Biography

Biography

Biography // 21min // Drama // 2016 // Israel

Director: Arik Kaufman

Miriam, an elderly war widow tormented by her young husband’s death, surrounds herself with archival recordings and writes his biography in her crumbling apartment.

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Forgotten Hero

Forgotten Hero

Forgotten Hero // 2min // Drama // 2016 // Australia

Writer/Director: Philip Meddows

A Veteran returns home and visits the house of a high school sweet heart to find her son fixing his old A Model Ford in the driveway.

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The Ravens

The Ravens

The Ravens //  20min // Drama // 2016 // Australia

Writer/Director: Jennifer Perrott

When young Ruby’s father returns unexpectedly from war, his volatile state makes it difficult for the family to reconnect.

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Darryl

Darryl

Darryl // 22min // Drama // 2016 // USA

Writer/Director: Christianna Carmine

An Iraq War Veteran is forced to face his past when his estranged daughter, fighting a battle of her own, re-enters his life.

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Sarge

Sarge

Sarge // 23:26min // Drama // 2016 // USA

Writer/Director: Benjamin Dewhurst

Franklin Spencer (Sarge) is an elderly Army veteran with dementia and PTSD. He longs to escape his nursing home to be with his granddaughter for her high school graduation.

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Anzac Letters

Anzac Letters

Anzac Letters // 7:37min // Documentary // 2015 // Australia

Director: Alison Rogers

Anzac Letters was created to share the experiences of the soldiers who took part in the first landing at Gallipoli, in April 1915, with a contemporary audience some 100 years later.

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Patient 39

Patient 39

Patient 39 // 15min // Drama // 2014 // UK

Writer/ Director: Dan Clifton

When a soldier known only as Patient 39 awakes from a coma with no memory, so begins the search to discover his identity and past.

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The Crater

The Crater

The Crater // 52min // Documentary // 2015 // Australia

Writer/Director: David Bradbury

A personal story of one’s man’s tour of duty in Vietnam and his obsessive search to locate 42 former enemy soldiers killed in action.

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Film festival honours veterans

FIFTEEN original short films were honoured at the inaugural Veterans Film Festival awards held last night at the Australian War Memorial. Two films stood out in the Red Poppy Awards for Best Australian Film and Best International Film went respectively to “Brass...

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Veterans Film Festival Red Poppy Awards

Veterans Film Festival Red Poppy Awards

Best International Film - Birthday (USA) Best Australian Film - Brass Razoo (Australia) Best Film Commemorating WWI - No Man’s Land (Finland) Best Film Commemorating ANZAC’s in WWI - Trench (Australia) Best Director Chris King - Birthday (USA) Best Cinematography -...

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The Haircut

The Haircut

The Haircut // 15min // Drama // 2014 // USA

Director: Alexis O Korycinski
Writer: Julia Cox

It’s 1976 and petite 18-year-old Amy is among the first class of female cadets accepted into military service academy.

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The Last Night

The Last Night

The Last Night // 16min // Drama // 2014 // New Zealand

Writer/Director: David Strong

Isolated at night in mountainous Afghanistan and surrounded by militia, a young United Nations military advisor struggles to negotiate with a powerful warlord.

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Birthday

Birthday

Birthday // 11min // Drama // 2015 // USA

Writer/Director: Chris King

When a young military wife gets news that her marine husband has been severely wounded in combat, she discovers that life ahead for them is going to be a difficult and yet amazing journey.

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Trench

Trench

Trench // 10min // Drama // 2015 // Australia

Writer/Director: Nathan Hunt

An Australian and a Turkish soldier come across one another in the trenches of Turkey during the First World War.

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Brass Razoo

Brass Razoo

Brass Razoo // 9min // Drama // 2015 // Australia

Director/Cinematographer: Troy Honeysett

A character study based on a fictional returned service man adjusting to reality after his time in Afghanistan.

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Friend or Foe

Friend or Foe

Friend or Foe // 18min // Drama // 2015 // Malta

Director/Producer: Shirley Spiteri Mintoff
Writer: Anthony Mintoff

Malta, 1941. RAF Squadron Leader James Alden is given the order to escort a German child to safety. His success or failure will decide the outcome the war. When seeking shelter from a night-time air-raid, James is confronted by a stranger.

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Ricochet

Ricochet

Ricochet // 14min // Drama // 2014 // Netherlands

Writer/Director: Wout Malestein

A young soldier returns from a mission of months in Afghanistan. The reunion with his girlfriend is difficult for him. The happiness of coming home contrasts too starkly with the traumatic loss of a pal in the theatre of war.

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At the End of the Road

At the End of the Road

At the End of the Road // 9min // Drama // 2014 // Australia

Writer/Director: Chloé Hetzel

It’s World War III. A grand father is on the road with his grandson. What can he do to save him?

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Dad’s Fragile Doll

Dad’s Fragile Doll

Dad’s Fragile Doll // 15 min // Animation // 2015 // Iran

Director: Ali Zare Ghanat Nowi

A young girl reconstructs events leading to her father’s imprisonment and execution using dolls her mother has made. The young girl takes vengeance on the prison guard doll.

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No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land // 4min // Animation // 2014 // Finland

Director: Vilvi Rae

A famous story from the trenches of the First World War, when British and German soldiers made a brief truce for Christmas Day.

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Ramble

Ramble

Ramble // 6min // Drama // 2015 // Germany

Writer/Director: Andreas Ramm

Based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ‘Osterspaziergang’, Ramble takes us on a romantic journey through nature, but sometimes we crave parodies so much that we lose track of reality.

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Winged Warriors

Winged Warriors

Winged Warriors // 13min // Drama // 2014 // United Kingdom

Writer/Director: Evy Barry

A story of war, fear, courage and leadership from the First World War front line. When the survival of the last of a platoon of soldiers who reach the enemy trenches depends on their messenger pigeons.

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Butchery

Butchery

Butchery // 6min  // Animation // 2014 // France

Director: Bernard Capitaine (aka Iono Allen)

World War I: 9 million dead, 8 million disabled. A short symbolic vision of this war, the first massive and technologic one, through real letters from a French soldier, German soldier, and English nurse.

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A Soldier’s Story

A Soldier’s Story

A Soldier’s Story // 12min // Documentary // 2015 // USA

Director: Loren Mendell
Writer: Laura Mickelson

Major Stephen Reich was an incredible athlete and American military hero who passed-up a Major League baseball career to return to active duty then tragically paid the ultimate price.

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The Rat’s Dilemma

The Rat’s Dilemma

The Rat’s Dilemma // 11min // Sci-Fi // 2014 // Israel

Writer/Director: Naor Meningher

In the Holocaust, a gifted Jewish physicist named Rudolph is forced to build a teleporter for the Nazis. Rudolph keeps telling his Nazi supervisor, Heinz, that the machine doesn’t work yet, but Heinz suspects Rudolph is hiding something.

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100 Years

100 Years

100 Years // 3min // Music Video // 2015 // Australia

Writer/Director: John and Elisabeth Dykstra

A song by John and Elisabeth Dykstra, The Berrys, about remembering soldiers from The Great War.

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The White Feather

The White Feather

The White Feather // 22min // Drama // 2014 // Australia

Writer/Director: Laurence de B Anderson

Albert Ellis says we shouldn’t fight Britain’s wars. Then he gets a white feather.

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Reprieve

Reprieve

Reprieve // 24min // Drama // 2014 // US

Writer/Director: Lorian James Delman

An American veteran has the chance to face the remaining members of an innocent family he accidentally killed in a firefight while serving overseas.

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Desertion

Desertion

Desertion // 9min // Drama // 2015 // United Kingdom

Writer/Director: Ben Reid

Rob, a young soldier wearing a war-torn uniform, walks towards an imposing tower block. He calls the intercom at the entrance, gripping a red box in his hand. As a woman answers, Rob nervously manages the most muted of greetings.

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Submerged

Submerged

Submerged // 15min // Drama // 2014 //  UK

Director: Darren Mapletoft
Writer: Michael Holley

During the 1950s the British Navy conducted a series of teleportation experiments using submarines. When one such experiment goes badly wrong, submariner Billy Bourne wakes from dreaming about ‘Baby’, his sweetheart, to discover he is alone onboard his submarine.

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Purple Heart

Purple Heart

Purple Heart // 16min // Drama // 2014 // USA

Director: Peter Kiwitt

Purple Heart tells the story of a young Iraq War veteran caught in the downward spiral of PTSD. His girlfriend, a deaf artist, tries to help him but he pushes her away. As his life unravels, he begins to lose control, veering towards tragedy.

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2013 Awards

2013 Awards

Parramatta Prize for Best Film and  Best Film on Returning Veterans  Film Name: Peacekeeper Team: Cinestudios Entertainment Producer: Joshua Hoareau Lead Female Actor: Tatiana Barrie Lead Male Actor: Paul O’Brien Logline: A former Australian Peacekeeper reflects on...

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